Degree Requirements

Overview

To obtain the Ph.D. in Engineering degree, you must complete an approved Program of Study that contains at least 135 quarter graduate credit hours beyond the bachelor's degree in engineering or an equivalent degree, or 90 graduate quarter credit hours beyond a Master's degree in engineering. At least 30 of these credit hours must be for graduate work beyond the master's degree.

To meet the 135 quarter graduate credit hours required for the Ph.D. in Engineering degree, a student with a B.S. degree must:

• Complete at least three interdisciplinary core courses and earn a minimum grade of "B" in each course. The core courses are
  • EGR-701, Linear Systems
  • EGR-702, Systems Engineering and Analysis
  • EGR-703, Computation Engineering Analysis
  • EGR-704, Design Optimization
  • EGR-705, Design and Analysis of Engineering Experiments
• Complete 24 quarter credit hours of major courses (700-level and above) in electrical engineering, biomedical engineering, human factors engineering, mechanical engineering, materials science and engineering, or in a focus area
• Complete at least 12 quarter credit hours of research focus area courses, i.e., graduate courses (600-level and above). This may include core courses and courses used to satisfy graduate course requirements
• Complete at least 12 quarter credit hours of breadth courses, i.e., graduate courses (600-level and above) outside the research focus area
• Complete at least 8 quarter credit hours of graduate (600-level and above) courses in mathematics (MTH) or statistics (STT). For students entering the program with a master's degree, the minimum is 4 graduate credit hours.
• Complete 6 quarter credit hours of EGR 891, Ph.D. Seminar
• Complete at least 10% of course work at a DAGSI-partner institution.
• Take no more than 5 quarter credit hours of independent study (Course number 890)
• Complete between 45-60 quarter credit hours of dissertation research
• Complete the requirements of the Program Qualification
• Present a 50-minute dissertation seminar during an EGR 891 course meeting
• Submit at least one manuscript to a peer-reviewed journal
• Complete the Candidacy Examination satisfactorily
• Complete the Research Proposal Defense satisfactorily
• Complete the Dissertation Defense satisfactorily
• Complete the final dissertation satisfactorily, as judged by the student's Dissertation Committee and the School of Graduate Studies

Note: Students having non-engineering backgrounds are required to successfully complete the equivalent of the relevant math and science sequences required for an undergraduate engineering degree appropriate for their focus area. These courses cannot be used to satisfy degree requirements.

Students with Master's Degrees

For students with M.S. degrees, the graduation requirements are identical to those listed above for students with B.S. degrees, as well as the following:

• You may request that up to 45 graduate credit hours be counted for the M.S. degree
• You are required to take at least 4 quarter credit hours of graduate MTH or STT courses.
• A core course requirement may be waived if the course was taken at WSU and a minimum grade of "B" was obtained.
• You may transfer a core course only if a similar graduate-level course was taken at another university